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MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 



WILLIAM T. HAMILTON, SYRACUSE, N. Y, 
1855. 




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A SERMON 



PREACHED IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, SYRACUSE, 



SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY EVENING, 

A. D., 1855. 



WM. BLISS ASHLEY, M. A., 



RECTOR. 



SYRACUSE: 

WILLIAM T. HAMILTON, PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER, 23 SOUTH SALENA STRBE1 '. 

1855. 



£f/o43< 



317*3/ 



Syracuse, March 2d, 1855. 
Rev. WM. B. ASHLEY, 

Dear Sir: — 

The undersigned, members of your own and 
other congregations in this city, hereby unite in requesting the publication 
(in such form as shall be most agreeable to yourself) of the Discourse on 
Modern Spiritualism, preached by you at St. Paul's Church, on the even- 
ing of Sunday, the 18th February. 

Without unnecessarily assuming to pronounce on any of the hypotheses 
advanced in the discourse, to account for the manifestations of Modern Spir- 
itualism, we desire to express our approval of its frank and faithful dealing 
with a subject now sharing so largely in the popular attention and bearing 
so closely upon those great moral interests, which the pulpit is set to sub- 
serve. The ability, earnestness and candor of its tone, in our judgment, 
can hardly fail to commend the sermon to which we refer to the respectful 
perusal of all who are interested in the theme it treats. 

Hoping for an early and favorable reply, we remain, 

Very Respectfully, 

Your Friends and Fellow Citizens, 

B. Davis Noxon, Geo. F. Comstock, 

Horace White, Jos. F. Sabine, 

Arch'd. C. Powell, M. D. Burnet, 

D. D. Hillis, John B. Burnet, 

John J. Peck, Wm. T. Hamilton, 

Wm. Jackson, Rob't R. Raymond. 



Messrs. NOXON, WHITE, and others. 
Gentlemen : 

If you deem it expedient to give a wider 
publicity to the sentiments expressed in the discourse to which you refer 
in your friendly note of March 2d, I have no objection to leaving it at your 
disposal. 

Very truly yours, 

WM. BLIS8 ASHLEY. 



" Will you be ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive 
away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's 
word ; and to use both public and private monitions and exhortations, as 
well to the sick as to the whole, within your cure, as need shall require, 
and occasion shall be given ? 

Answer, — I will, the Lord being my helper. 

Boole of Common Prayer. 
Form for Ordering of PriesU. 



DISCOURSE. 



St. Matt., vi, 13.— "And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us 
from evil." 

When our blessed Savior was here on earth, He prescribed 
a form of prayer for the daily use of His disciples, in which 
are found the following petitions : — " Lead us not into temp- 
tation"; in other words, suffer us not to be led into such temp- 
tations as we are not able to withstand — " but deliver us from 
evil" — i. e. as the best critics paraphrase it, " from the Evil 
One." Our Heavenly Father will hear and grant us these pe- 
titions, so long as we are careful to refrain from evil courses, 
and walk only in those ways in which He directs or permits 
us to walk. But no longer. If we stray off into paths which 
He has not opened unto us — much more, if we wander into 
those wherein He has forbidden us to go, He will withdraw 
from us the shield of His protection, and abandon us to the 
power of our spiritual adversary, who, "as a roaring lion 
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." (1 Peter, 5, 8.) 

Into one of those forbidden, and therefore perilous paths, 
we shall wander, my brethren, if we go and take counsel of 
necromancers; — of those, in other words, who pretend to 
hold converse with the spirits of the dead. For this is one 
of those superstitious practices which originated among Pa- 
gans, and has hitherto been confined, for the most part, to 
idolatrous nations — a practice which God hath expressly, and 



r> 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 



9 



under severe penalties forbidden His people to follow. Thus 
saith the Lord — " Eegard not them that have familiar spirits, 
neither seek after wizards (those who profess to evoke the 
dead, in order to learn from them the secrets of the invisible 
world) to be defiled by them — I am the Lord your God." 
(Lev. 19, 31. See also Deut. 18, 19 to 24.) In the last clause, 
you observe, the reason for this prohibition is set forth. It 
is because " /am the Lord your God" that you are not to " re- 
gard them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wiz- 
ards." To do these things therefore, is treason against Jeho- 
vah — a violation of the first and fundamental precept of the 
moral law ; " Thou shalt have none other Gods but me" — a 
precept which is of eternal and immutable obligation upon 
all rational beings. Any practice which was once forbidden, 
because it was incompatible with this fundamental moral 
preeept, is still forbidden, and for the same reason, to all who 
are bound to worship God, and serve Him alone. These 
practices are therefore prohibited to us, no less than they 
were to the ancients. 

The penalty which was annexed to this sin, further evinces 
how abominable it was, and is in the sight of Him who de- 
clares himself to be a jealous God — "The soul that turneth 
after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a 
whoring after them (a scripture metaphor for idolatry), I will 
even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from 
among his people." (Lev. 20, 6.) 

To seek for messages from the Cl spirit land" through those 
who pretend to be media for their transmission, is therefore 
presumptuously to go in a way wherein God hath forbidden 
us to walk; is to run into a temptation from which we have 
prayed Him to keep us; and so to expose ourselves to the pow- 
er of that Evil One from whom we have besought him to de- 
liver us. To do this merely from motives of curiosity, when 
we know how expressly God hath forbidden it, is to be guilty 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 7 

of that sin of presumption which, if persisted in, will cause 
our Heavenly Father to reject all our prayers, and to give us 
over to the will of our spiritual enemy. To go even so far 
as to seek communications from the dead at all through the 
agency of those who claim to receive them, is a fearful sin — 
a sin which should cause all who are denied with its guilt, 
however unwittingly they may have committed it, to repent 
beneath the cross whereon that precious blood was shed which 
cleanseth from all sin. 

But to go further, and turn necromancers, or wizards our- 
selves, my Christian brethren — to put our bodies, which, when 
we were baptized into the name of the blessed Trinity, were 
made temples of the Holy Ghost, (see 1 Cor. 6, 19,) to put 
our bodies or any portion of them, whether in imagination or 
ia reality, into the possession, or under the control, or under 
the influence of any other spirits than the Holy Spirit of truth 
and grace, or to attempt to do so with a view, and in the hope 
of receiving messages from them concerning the things which 
shall be hereafter — to resort to any other than the Spirit of 
God for comfort, for succor, for instruction in righteousness, 
for guidance, for a knowledge of the condition of human soul? 
in the unseen world, or for intimations touching one's own 
destiny in this life or in that which is to come, is a sin, not 
indeed too great to be forgiven, if committed unwittingly, 
and repented of and forsaken as soon as disclosed to us — but 
which, persisted in, amounts to treason against the Holy Ghost, 
if not to that blasphemy against Him which hath never for- 
giveness. 

You are well aware brethren, that within the last few years, 
many persons have claimed to hold frequent and familiar in- 
tercourse with unseen spirits; to receive communications from 
them; and to be made in some way the media of communi- 
cation between those spirits and ourselves. They claim to be 
the instruments of a new revelation, not indeed from the 



b MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

Spirit of God, but from (treated spirits — from the souls of those 
who once lived here on earth. 

Well now it is obvious that these alleged spiritual manifes- 
tations are either impostures, or delusions, or else they are 
solemn realities. 

If they are impostures; if the persons who claim to be the 
media of communication between the living and the dead are 
attempting, for the sake of gain or of notoriety, to impose 
upon our credulity ; to make us believe what they know to 
be false, (as, from what I have recently seen and heard, I am 
confident is the case with some of them, and as others, whose 
investigations have been more extensive than mine, are con- 
vinced is the case with a large proportion of them,) if, I say. 
they be vile impostures, then assuredly they come from the 
suggestions of no good spirit, but are Devilish — they proceed 
from the crafts of the Arch-Impostor — and his visible agents 
ought to be shunned and execrated by every man who either 
respects himself, or honors his fellows. 

Or if they are simple delusions — if these pretended media 
are not impostors, as I have no doubt is the case in many in- 
stances — if some of them sincerely believe themselves to be 
instruments of communication between the living and the 
dead, while they are not such in reality, but are the unsus- 
pecting victims of a horrible delusion — if they are deceived 
and imposed upon themselves, their delusion can come from 
no good spirit — whatsoever or whosoever the proximate 
cause of it may be, its ultimate author can be none other than 
that Evil One whom our Divine Lord denominates the Father 
of lies. If they be the deluded victims of his wily arts, they 
deserve, not our execrations, but our tenderest compassions, 
and our devoutest prayers — bearing in mind that we are par- 
takers of the same fallen, fallible, and deceivable nature with 
themselves ; lest we also, trusting too confidently in our un- 
aided ability to escape all delusions, and so running presump- 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 9 

tuously into the way of temptation, are suffered to be tempt- 
ed above that we are able to bear, and fall into the same 
snare of the enemy. 

My brethren, if these things be delusions, as many judi- 
cious men think they are where they are not impostures, they 
certainly are not trifling, but very sad and serious delusions ; 
such as (so their history, however brief, assures us) expose 
their victims to fearful mental and moral perils. If they be 
delusions, they are such as have induced many professing 
Christians to renounce the faith and fellowship of the gospel 
and the Church of Jesus Christ, away from whom they can- 
not be saved — and have already consigned scores, if not hun- 
dreds of their victims to the maniac's horrible doom. 

But if these spiritual manifestations (so called) are neither 
Satanic impostures, nor Devilish delusions, but grave reali- 
ties, as some alledge, and I neither affirm nor deny; then the 
question is, are they of natural or supernatural origin? It is 
the opinion of some intelligent men, who have given much 
time to the investigation of these alleged phenomena, that, 
so far as they are realities and not delusions or impostures, 
they are to be accounted for on well known principles of 
psychology. 

Without either affirming or denying the correctness of this 
theory, I shall proceed upon the supposition that they are, as 
is insisted, the work of invisible beings. 

Assuming this hypothesis, I ask, from what order of spirits 
do they come ? 

Now according to the plain and obvious teachings of those 
Holy Scriptures, which God hath caused to be written for our 
learning, and from which we derive all our reliable knowl- 
edge of the unseen world, there are three classes of created 
spirits, and only three, whose existence is revealed to man — 
three classes and only three, who have any intercourse with 



10 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

our world, or in whom we have any practical interest — to wit : 
Angels, Devils, and disembodied human Souls. If therefore 
these alleged spiritual phenomena be supernatural realities, 
they must proceed from one or from all of these invisible 
entities. 

And are the blessed angels, those bright, beautiful and pow- 
erful Messengers of the King of Glory, the authors of these 
phenomena? They did indeed descend from their celestial 
home, when Jehovah, God the Word, disclosed His majesty 
to man on Sinai's awful brow, and gave to him, amid terrors, 
a transcript of His Sovereign will ! They did indeed, descend 
in innumerable hosts, when the same Jehovah, God the Son, 
was more sublimely manifested, in the fulness of His inesti- 
mable love, in the Babe of Bethlehem, the Son of Mary ; 
when for us men and for our salvation, He was found in 
fashion as a man ! They did indeed descend when the same 
adorable Being, God manifest in the flesh, our Maker, yet our 
Brother, began those mysterious sufferings in Gethsemane, 
which ended in blood and death on Calvary, whereby the 
sins of humanity were expiated ! They did indeed descend 
when, at His mighty resurrection, He triumphed for us over 
death and all the powers of darkness ; and when, at His glo- 
rious ascension, He opened the kingdom of heaven to all be- 
lievers ! These were occasions worthy their attendance, and 
befitting their dignity. 

But can it be that they leave their celestial abodes and 
come to earth to spell, as school boys do, only not half so well, 
by rude rappings — to tip tables, and thrum guitars, to write 
such sense or nonsense as human brains and human hands 
can write — to utter scoffing rhapsodies, or silly platitudes, or 
transcendental solecisms, for the entertainment of our idle 
hours, or for the gratification of a vain curiosity? or even for 
the purpose of teaching us, in such gross and clumsy manner, 
or in any manner, truths which have been fitly disclosed to 
us already by the incarnate Son of God ? 



MODEEN SPIRITUALISM. 11 

"Whenever angels have been revealed to man hitherto, it 
has been through no such rude, infantine instrumentalities 
as these — it has been, through no visible medium whatever, 
whether human or inhuman; but directly, in person, under 
the form and aspect and in the garb of priestly men engaged 
in holy offices. 

But not to dwell longer on this point; these pretended spir- 
its do not claim to be angels, and therefore they certainly are 
not — for no holy angel would pretend to be any thing but an 
angel. These alleged spiritual manifestations cannot there- 
fore proceed from angels. 

They must then, (if they be supernatural realities, and not 
fictions, which, I say again, I neither affirm nor deny) they 
must proceed either from demons, or from disembodied hu- 
man spirits. It is claimed by the advocates of this new sys- 
tem, that these manifested spirits all pretend to be of human 
origin, and that they evince so intimate an acquaintance with 
the earthly history of those deceased persons whose souls they 
pretend to be, as leaves no reason to doubt the truth of their 
pretensions. Now admitting the truth of these allegations — 
admitting that the supposed spirits do claim to be human, 
and that they are familiar with human affairs — it does not 
thence follow that they are, in truth, what they claim to be, 
exeept we deny that there are any lying spirits — any spirits 
who can seem to be what they are not ; who, as the sacred 
Scriptures affirm of Satan, have power to transform them- 
selves into seeming angels of light ; and are acquainted, more 
or less intimately, with what occurs here on earth. 

But the existence, and the operative presence in our world, 
of such lying spirits cannot be denied, without affirming that 
our Lord and His apostles taught some things which were not 
true — without declaring, blasphemously, that they were Tea- 
chers of lies. For they tell us plainly and in every way, in 



12 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

their sermons, in their parables, in their historical narrations, 
in their biographical notices, in their epistles to the churches, 
in their forms of devotion, in their most solemn exhortations 
and warnings, in their predictions, in their maledictions, in 
their benedictions, and in their oft repeated miracles of mer- 
cy, in all possible forms of instruction I say, Jesus Christ and 
His apostles teach us, not only that there are lying spirits, 
who are permitted to take more or less cognizance of human 
affairs — but that they are allowed to tempt us to such an ex- 
tent, that we ought daily to pray to be delivered from their 
dangerous snares — and that, from the day on which onr first 
parents fell from innocence and bliss, through the seductive 
influence of their Prince, whatsoever evils they have brought 
upon our race individually or collectively, they have effected 
by means of Vying artifices, and deceitful wiles. If then we 
receive the teachings of God's word on this subject as true, 
we must admit that, though these spiritual manifestations 
(so called) seem to come from disembodied human spirits, it 
does not follow of necessity, that they are such in truth. — 
Having attempted to deceive men in other things, by their 
lying arts, and not without lamentable success, we cannot be 
certain that Devilish spirits are not seeking to deceive us in 
this. 

Since therefore, (supposing the alleged phenomena, to be 
facts and not fictions) though they pretend to be human souls, 
they may in fact be foul fiends who lie in wait to deceive, and 
are striving to get an advantage over us by personating those 
we love, let us briefly enquire, which is the more probable 
hypothesis, that they are human, or that they are devilish 
spirits ? 

The latter seems to me to be much the more probable hy- 
pothesis, and for the following, among other reasons which 
might be urged were there time. 

I. — According to the teachings of those Holy Scriptures, 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 16 

which He who inhabiteth eternity hath caused to be written 
for our learning, according to their plain teachings, the spirits 
of the dead have never been permitted to hold any such con- 
verse with the living as is here pretended, nor any converse 
at all except on two or three very extraordinary occasions. — 
On the contrary, the Author of those Scriptures, our Creator, 
Sovereign and Judge, has expressly forbidden us, under se- 
vere penalties, as we have seen, to seek for any communica- 
tions from them either by ourselves, or through the medium 
of those who pretend to receive them — and hath inflicted ter- 
rible judgments upon those who have sought them. And 
since He hath forbidden these things, it can only be because 
it is contrary to His will that they should communicate with 
us, or we with them; because he deems it best not to allow 
any such intercourse between the living and the dead. 

As a further intimation that the Father of human spirits 
does not allow them to return to this world after death, and 
will not till the general resurrection, our Lord informs us, in 
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, that the prayer of 
the former that the latter might be sent back to communicate 
with his five brethren, was expressly denied ; and denied on 
this ground, that there was no need of any further proofs that 
good men would be happy and wicked men miserable in the 
unseen world, than those contained in Holy Scriptures ; and 
that, if these failed to bring them to repentance, no addition- 
al evidence would avail to persuade them. The argument 
runs thus, you perceive — it would do the living no good mor- 
ally and spiritually to send back the dead to hold converse 
with them — therefore Lazarus cannot be sent back. 

Is it objected, that the spirit of Samuel was sent back to 
communicate with Saul, through the sorceries of the witch of 
Endor ? But this does not invalidate our statement. 

For it is not certain that the spirit of Samuel returned 
at all. All that was said and done on that occasion, may 



14 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

have been effected by means of collusion, and the delusive 
arts usually resorted to by such deceivers. Such is the view 
which many judicious critics take of this case. 

2. But admitting that the veritable spirit of the prophet 
did return, and was permitted to assume the venerable aspect 
of the body in which it once tabernacled, admitting this, and 
it makes nothing in favor of modern necromancy. 

a) Because it was, in that case, altogether miraculous — 
a total departure from the ordinary rule in regard to spiritu- 
al intercourse. ~No such instance, so far as we know, had oc- 
curred before — none has taken place since, leaving these re- 
cent pretensions out of view. All that it goes to prove is, 
that the spirits of the dead are alive, and that they are sub- 
ject still to the disposal of the God of Israel. It is not of 
course questioned that he has power to send back the spirits 
of the dead ; but surely the fact, (admitting it to be such) that 
He exercised that power at an important juncture in the his- 
tory of His ancient Church, to rebuke the waywardness of a 
wicked king, who in the very act was violating a divine pro- 
hibition with which he was not only acquainted, but for whose 
enforcement he had pretended to be very jealous — I say the 
fact that the Almighty exercised His prerogative, and sent 
back the spirit of Samuel to rebuke and threaten Saul under 
such circumstances, affords no proof that the spirits of ordinary 
men are now permitted to return in multitudes, on the most 
trivial occasions, and the most unimportant errands. 

V) But this case, admitting it to have been real, was quite 
too dissimilar to those now pretended, to be the foundation 
of an argument in favor of modern necromancy. Samuel 
appeared to Saul and the woman, in human shape, and spake 
to him in person, and in the audience of others, so as to be 
heard by all present. Such things, I apprehend, are not 
claimed by the necromancers of our time. 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 15 

c) But finally, this case is a very unfortunate one for those 
who refer to it in behalf of modern necromancy. For it was 
done in direct violation of the divine command, and was at- 
tended and followed by unmistakable and terrible indications 
of the divine displeasure — nay it was only because Saul had 
grieved away the Spirit of God. so that he no longer received 
the usual tokens of His favor, and because an evil spirit had 
taken possession of him, that he was induced to seek after this 
wizard, in direct violation of the command of Jehovah, The 
subsequent history of this rebellious King, and his miserable 
end, ought to serve as a solemn warning to those who seek 
after wizards to consult them, after the example of his wick- 
edness. 

The apparition of Moses and Elias on the mount of the 
Transfiguration, and of the saints who arose from the dead 
when the Son of God gave up the ghost, have been referred 
to, in support of modern necromancy. But these instances 
only prove, what no Christian believer is disposed to deny ; to 
wit, that God is able to bring back the dead, and that He saw 
fit to do so on two occasions, when His only-begotten Son was 
bringing "life and immortality to light by the gospel." — 
These two wonderful events, like all the Christian miracles, 
do bear irrefragible testimony to the truth of the everlasting 
gospel. But they afford no more evidence in support of this 
new-fangled spiritualism (falsely so called), than they do in 
favor of Swedenborgianism, or Mormonism, or any other 
modern invention. 

But to return whence we digressed. While we are no 
where told that the dead are permitted to hold any such in- 
tercourse, as is now claimed, with the living; but have the 
plainest intimations, that it is contrary to the will of God ; 
we are taught, in the most explicit terms, that Devilish spirits 
are allowed to hold such intercourse with mortals. And now 
I ask, in view of these facts, which is the more probable, sup- 



16 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

posing these alleged phenomena to proceed from any spirits, 
that they are from demons, or from the souls of dead men? 

II. — But again. The Holy Ghost has no where predicted 
in those sacred Scriptures which He hath caused to be writ- 
ten for us, that the time should ever come when this bann 
should be removed, and the souls of the departed be permit- 
ted to hold famaliar converse with the living. Neither has 
He any where foretold, that any further revelations than 
those which have already been vouchsafed to us, and which 
are contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, should ever be given to man on earth — much less, that, 
if any were vouchsafed, they would be imparted by any other 
than the Holy Spirit of God, or in amy other mcmner than 
that in which they were imparted to Moses and Isaiah, to St. 
Paul, and St. John. On the contrary, He has declared to us 
expressly, that the gospel contains the final and complete rev- 
elation of God to man until the second advent of Christ; and 
pronounced a malediction upon all who should pretend to 
make any new, or any additional revelations. (See John xiv, 
26, xvi, 13; Colossians, 2, 9, 10; Galatians, 1, 6 to 10; Eev. 
xxii, 18.) 

But on the other hand, He did predict that false Christs, 
and false prophets, and false teachers, and lying spirits should 
come and attempt to deceive. He did predict, that a state 
of things similar in many respects to that which we now be- 
hold, should arise, and that Devilish spirits should be its au- 
thors, though not without the voluntary co-operation of living 
men. " Now the Spirit" (the Holy Spirit of God, which was 
m the apostles) " speaketh expressly, that in the latter times 
some shall depart from the faith" (in other words renounce 
the creed, and forsake the fellowship of the gospel) " giving 
heed to seducing spirits" (to spirits whose aim it would be to 
entice them away from the path of life) " and doctrines of 
Devils" (or, more literally, doctrines by Demons, suggested 
by them) " speaking lies in hypocrisy" — i. e. under pretence 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. IT 

of superior sanctity and spirituality of character. (See 1 
Timothy, iv, 1.) 

Now in view of these facts also, to wit, that there are no 
predictions in Holy Scripture that any such phenomena as 
we now behold, should ever be produced through the agency 
of disembodied human spirits, and that there are prophecies, 
which appear to include them within their scope, in 
which they are expressly ascribed to lying spirits; in view of 
these facts I ask, which is the more probable, supposing them 
to proceed from any spirits, that they are human, or that they 
are devilish ? 

III. — But further. While the Holy Scriptures (whicl 
were written by inspiration of God, and therefore cannot de- 
ceive us) every where speak of the dead in terms which im- 
ply that they have departed from this world, have nothing 
more to do with its affairs, and have become inhabitants of 
another country " from whose bourne no traveler returns" — 
while the word of God speaks thus of the dead, saying — 
" The spirit of man goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast 
downward" — "then (at death) shall the dust return to the 
earth, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it" — while 
they speak of death as a "going hence" — a " flying away" — 
a departure into Paradise — a departing " to be with Christ" 
— as a going whence we " shall not return" — while they tell 
us that we shall go to our lost ones, but " they shall not re- 
turn to us" — that the holy dead " rest from their labors" — 
enjoy that "rest which remaineth for the people of God" — 
while they assure us that they are in the bosom of an ineffa- 
ble tranquillity, a tranquillity not to be disturbed by the wiles 
of evil spirits, nor by the prying incantations of curious 
men and women, informing us that they are gone " where 
the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at 
rest" — that they have " entered into peace" — even into 
that " peace of God which surpasseth all understanding," 
and which He will not suffer to be disturbed or interrupted 



18 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

until the morning of the resurrection, and then only that He 
may give them back their bodies, now no longer mortal and 
weak, and advance them in the integrity of their human na- 
ture, to still higher honors, and admit them into still pro- 
founder depths of His ineffable joy — while God's word speaks 
thus of the holy dead ; and tells us, that the unholy are in a 
place of torment whence there is no escape — (St. Luke, xvi. 
26) — while it thus assures us, that the souls of the dead have 
no such intercourse with the living, as is here pretended, no 
intercourse at all, save that of recollection, and of mutual 
fellowship in and through the church, which is the mystical 
Body of Christ, the only medium of sympathy between the 
embodied and the disembodied — while, I repeat once more, the 
word of God speaks thus of the non-intercourse between dead 
and living men ; it tells us plainly, on the other hand, that, 
as holy angels have much to do with human affairs, so do the 
spirits of evil, the powers of darkness — that they work in the 
children of disobedience (Eph. ii, 2) — that they have some- 
times entered into the bodies of men, and controlled their 
powers of utterance, of hearing, and of locomotion — that they 
have used the tongues of men to utter, in human ears, their 
own sentiments — that they have bereft men of reason, and 
made them fierce, and false, and foul, and fearful, and frantic 
with misery, like themselves. 

And now I ask you, in view of these two classes of Scrip- 
tural facts also, which is the more probable, that these alleg- 
ed phenomena, supposing them to be caused by spirits, pro- 
ceed from the souls of deceased men, or from the powers of 
darkness ? 

IV. — Let me offer you, briefly, one reason more for the 
conviction, that if any spirits are concerned in these phenom- 
ena, they are Devilish, rather than human. 

I deduce it from these three facts : 1. That we have no 
authentic account of any such thing as is here alleged, viz, 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 19 

the soul of one man, which has left its own body, taking pos- 
session of the body, or of any portion of the body of another 
living man, and using it for his own purposes, and according 
to his own will — we have no authentic account of such things, 
except it be in the records of modern necromancy. 

2. But, (and this is the second fact, on which I wish to fas- 
ten your minds for a moment) we have authentic accounts, 
not only in the New Testament, but in other contemporane- 
ous and reliable, though uninspired writers, of the spirits of 
evil taking possession of, and controling the whole or a por- 
tion of the bodies of living men. 

3. And now (this is the third fact) there are several very 
striking points of " resemblance between the phenomena al- 
leged in those who are now called spiritual mediums, and the 
phenomena exhibited in those who of old were possessed by 
demons. In both, a mortal is placed between us and the al- 
leged agent. In both, the mortal acts against or without his 
own will. In both, the effort of the unseen spirit to commu- 
nicate is rude, and awkward, and nearly abortive. In both, 
the frequent result or concomitant, is insanity, more or less 
miserable. In both, there is a certain compelled homage to 
the gospel, and yet in both, an hostility to the gospel, avowed. 
or ineffectually disguised." (Bishop Burgess.) 

Since then there is no evidence, aside from that furnished 
by these necromancers themselves, that one deceased man's 
soul can take possession and control of another living man's 
body — and since there is abundant evidence that evil spirits 
have done so — and since there is a striking resemblance in 
several characteristic particulars, between the psychical phe- 
nomena manifested in those real demoniacal possessions, and 
in these pretended human possessions, I ask you, in view of 
this group of facts also, which is the more probable, that these 
supposed spirits are human, or that they are Devilish? 



20 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

I might show you were it not that I should exhaust your 
patience, by citations from the revelations (so called) of 
these pretended spirits, that they contradict directly, or by 
obvious implication, almost every doctrine taught us by the 
Holy Spirit of God in the Sacred Scriptures, and that it is 
therefore more probable that, if they proceed from spirits at 
all, they are Devilish, than that they are human. 

There is one other consideration however, which I beg leave 
to lay distinctly before you, before I proceed to close. I base 
it upon the hypothesis, without affirming or denying its truth, 
that these alleged communications with invisible spirits of 
some sort, are, as is claimed, supernatural realities. If they 
be created spirits of any kind, angelic, or human, or satanic, 
then to seek for spiritual comfort, or for instruction in right- 
eousness, or for religious guidance from them and their sup- 
posed revelations, instead of, or even in conjunction with, the 
Holy Spirit of God, and His written word, is to do despite 
to the Spirit of. grace ; is to impeach the completeness of the 
revelation which He has given us in the sacred Scriptures — 
is to call in question the sufficiency of His ministrations and 
operations in the kingdom of grace — is in fact, to embrace 
and attempt to establish, another gospel than that which we 
have received from our Christian fathers — another gospel 
than that which the Son of God came into our world, and 
into our nature to disclose, and make effectual to our salva- 
tion — and is to incur the double anathema, not of man, but 
of God the Holy Ghost — who inspired St. Paul to write these 
words — " Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any 
other gospel unto you than that which we have preached 
unto you, let him be accursed ! As we said before, so say I 
now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you 
than that ye have received, let him be accursed !" (Gal. 
i, 8, 9.) 

Inasmuch then as these alleged spiritual manifestations are 
either impostures, or delusions, or realities — inasmuch as, if 






MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 21 

impostures, their source is certainly evil — or if delusions, cer- 
tainly evil — or if supernatural realities, probably evil — inas- 
much as, whether they be impostures, or delusions, or reali- 
ties, or a mixture of all, they can do us no good which is 
not secured to all Christian believers infallibly, and immuta- 
bly, and in infinitely larger measure, in the gospel and Church 
of God — inasmuch as they have already caused many to 
apostatize from Christ Jesus, away from whom there is no 
salvation, and extinguished the light of reason in many hu- 
man souls — and inasmuch as God has forbidden these things, 
and denounced them as virtual treason against Himself, and 
His Good Spirit, and has threatened to set His face against 
the man that seeketh after wizards to be defiled by them, is 
it not, I ask you in the name of God, is it not the dictate of 
wisdom to flee these things — to eschew them utterly — to re- 
nounce them at once, and forevermore ? 

My brethren, as beloved children I warn you to take heed 
unto yourselves — to " see that ye walk circumspectly, not as 
fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are 
evil.'* Beware lest ye " fall into the snare of the Devil, and 
are taken captive by him, at his will." 

Beloved let us pray earnestly for ourselves, and for one 
another, and for our children, in the significant language of 
our solemn Litany — " From the crafts and assaults, and from 
all the deceits of the Devil, Good Lord deliver us." 

Let us have recourse for guidance and instruction and com- 
fort, to no other spirits but the One, Holy, Blessed, and Ado- 
rable Spirit of grace and truth ; who hath caused all holy 
Scriptures to be written for our learning ; who hath regener- 
ated us in baptism ; who hath illuminated and confirmed us 
in the laying on of hands — who hath strengthened and re- 
freshed our souls with the body and blood of Christ, who is 
our Life, in the sacrament of redeeming love— who hath 
helped us in our prayers, making intercession for us and 



22 MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

within us with plaints which could not be uttered — who hath 
opened our understandings to understand the Scriptures — 
who hath comforted us in our sorrows, and cheered us in our 
despondencies, and strengthened us in our weakness — whose 
"Blessed unction from above, 
Is comfort, life and fire of love" — 
who doth 

" Anoint and cheer our soiled face, 
With the abundance of His grace." 

To Him I say, and to no other spirits, let us have recourse, 
for the supply of all our spiritual wants in this vale of tears. 

Sheltered beneath His brooding, quickening wings, we need 
not fear the power of any adversaries. Fearing Him with 
filial awe, trusting in Him with a lively and a steadfast faith, 
and walking in the holy ways to which His precepts lead, we 
shall be safe. Endued with the " whole armor of God," the 
breast-plate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet 
of hope, the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, 
we shall be prepared for every conflict with the enemies of 
our salvation. "Wielding these weapons of our spiritual war- 
fare as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, as soldiers who own no 
Captain but Him, and follow no orders but those He gives 
us in His Holy "Word, by His Infallible Spirit, we shall come 
off conquerors, and more than conquerors, through the great- 
ness of His redeeming love and power. 

" Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, ana 
to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with 
exceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory 
and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. — 
Amen !" 



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